The six-fixture festive stint could prove to be vital come the final day of the top-flight season on May 12, with Town scrapping to clinch one of the top 17 spots in the Premier League table.

The Yorkshire side slipped into the relegation zone after three consecutive defeats last week, but can go level on points with the Magpies with victory at the John Smith's Stadium this weekend.

Newcastle currently lie 15th in the league, but missed out on more points at the weekend as Matt Doherty's last-gasp winner handed Wolverhampton Wanderers a dramatic victory at the John Smith's Stadium.

Boss Rafa Benitez was unhappy with some decisions made by referee Mike Dean during the clash, such as DeAndre Yedlin's red card for tugging back Diogo Jota, but Toon midfielder Mohamed Diame did not point the blame at the official.

"Of course it's difficult to be playing against a good team like Wolves with 10 men and we don't know whether a couple of the decisions were right for us, but we need to make sure we don’t lose even if we don’t win. Huddersfield is another final for us now."

On the Wolves loss, the 31-year-old added: "It was a really bad result.

"We can say everything about how we fought, we showed good attitude but we lost the points, especially at home that is disappointing.

“We had a good point against Everton last Wednesday and Wolves was a good opportunity for us with all the results from Saturday, now we are disappointed not to have done our bit to get the result we wanted.

“When you lose there is always something to blame. I know a lot of people will say we have worked hard, gave a lot but not everything because we lost and we are left disappointed again.